This interview confirmed my opinion of Johnson's most humane and benevolent heart.His cordial and placid behaviour to an old fellow-collegian,a man so different from himself;and his telling him that he would go down to his farm and visit him,showed a kindness of disposition very rare at an advanced age.He observed,'how wonderful it was that they had both been in London forty years,without having ever once met,and both walkers in the street too!'Mr.Edwards,when going away,again recurred to his consciousness of senility,and looking full in Johnson's face,said to him,'You'll find in Dr.Young,"O my coevals!remnants of yourselves."'
Johnson did not relish this at all;but shook his head with impatience.Edwards walked off,seemingly highly pleased with the honour of having been thus noticed by Dr.Johnson.When he was gone,I said to Johnson,I thought him but a weak man.JOHNSON.
'Why,yes,Sir.Here is a man who has passed through life without experience:yet I would rather have him with me than a more sensible man who will not talk readily.This man is always willing to say what he has to say.'Yet Dr.Johnson had himself by no means that willingness which he praised so much,and I think so justly;for who has not felt the painful effect of the dreary void,when there is a total silence in a company,for any length of time;or,which is as bad,or perhaps worse,when the conversation is with difficulty kept up by a perpetual effort?
Johnson once observed to me,'Tom Tyers described me the best:
"Sir,(said he,)you are like a ghost:you never speak till you are spoken to."'
The gentleman whom he thus familiarly mentioned was Mr.Thomas Tyers,son of Mr.Jonathan Tyers,the founder of that excellent place of publick amusement,Vauxhall Gardens,which must ever be an estate to its proprietor,as it is peculiarly adapted to the taste of the English nation;there being a mixture of curious show,--gay exhibition,musick,vocal and instrumental,not too refined for the general ear;--for all which only a shilling is paid;and,though last,not least,good eating and drinking for those who choose to purchase that regale.Mr.Thomas Tyers was bred to the law;but having a handsome fortune,vivacity of temper,and eccentricity of mind,he could not confine himself to the regularity of practice.
He therefore ran about the world with a pleasant carelessness,amusing everybody by his desultory conversation.He abounded in anecdote,but was not sufficiently attentive to accuracy.Itherefore cannot venture to avail myself much of a biographical sketch of Johnson which he published,being one among the various persons ambitious of appending their names to that of my illustrious friend.That sketch is,however,an entertaining little collection of fragments.Those which he published of Pope and Addison are of higher merit;but his fame must chiefly rest upon his Political Conferences,in which he introduces several eminent persons delivering their sentiments in the way of dialogue,and discovers a considerable share of learning,various knowledge,and discernment of character.This much may I be allowed to say of a man who was exceedingly obliging to me,and who lived with Dr.
Johnson in as easy a manner as almost any of his very numerous acquaintance.
Mr.Edwards had said to me aside,that Dr.Johnson should have been of a profession.I repeated the remark to Johnson that I might have his own thoughts on the subject.JOHNSON.'Sir,it WOULDhave been better that I had been of a profession.I ought to have been a lawyer.'BOSWELL.'I do not think,Sir,it would have been better,for we should not have had the English Dictionary.'
JOHNSON.'But you would have had Reports.'BOSWELL.'Ay;but there would not have been another,who could have written the Dictionary.There have been many very good Judges.Suppose you had been Lord Chancellor;you would have delivered opinions with more extent of mind,and in a more ornamented manner,than perhaps any Chancellor ever did,or ever will do.But,I believe,causes have been as judiciously decided as you could have done.'JOHNSON.
'Yes,Sir.Property has been as well settled.'
Johnson,however,had a noble ambition floating in his mind,and had,undoubtedly,often speculated on the possibility of his supereminent powers being rewarded in this great and liberal country by the highest honours of the state.Sir William Scott informs me,that upon the death of the late Lord Lichfield,who was Chancellor of the University of Oxford,he said to Johnson,'What a pity it is,Sir,that you did not follow the profession of the law.
You might have been Lord Chancellor of Great Britain,and attained to the dignity of the peerage;and now that the title of Lichfleld,your native city,is extinct,you might have had it.'Johnson,upon this,seemed much agitated;and,in an angry tone,exclaimed,'Why will you vex me by suggesting this,when it is too late?'
But he did not repine at the prosperity of others.The late Dr.
Thomas Leland,told Mr.Courtenay,that when Mr.Edmund Burke shewed Johnson his fine house and lands near Beaconsfield,Johnson coolly said,'Non equidem invideo;miror magis.'I am not entirely without suspicion that Johnson may have felt a little momentary envy;for no man loved the good things of this life better than he did and he could not but be conscious that he deserved a much larger share of them,than he ever had.--BOSWELL.
Yet no man had a higher notion of the dignity of literature than Johnson,or was more determined in maintaining the respect which he justly considered as due to it.Of this,besides the general tenor of his conduct in society,some characteristical instances may be mentioned.